Space Wolves for the new Kill Team

Space Wolf team converted from the Space Marine heroes line, with custom Wolf Scout.

In the spirit of what I did with Special Operations Killzone for Kill Team 5^th ed I am tinkering with the current much improved version of Kill Team. I want to push the more narrative aspect of the game to a higher level. 

I am currently working on House Rules for a generic gear and weapons list that all teams can access as well as faction specific ones. I am also working on additional entries to most of the factions to make things more lore centric.

The first thing I have done is made a proper Space Wolves list for the new Kill Team. This list completely replaces the Tactical Marine and Scout entries for Grey Hunters, Wolf Scouts and a single Long Fang entry. This new list gives you a flavorful lore centric Space Wolves list that any Wolf Lord could be proud of.

Narrative Kill Team Space Wolves

I reimagined both the Tactical and Scout squad entries to match the options available to their Space Wolf cousins in the Grey Hunters and Wolf Scouts. This gave me a conundrum of how to handle the Grey Hunters melee weapons upgrades, as it is very common for a Hunter to carry a Chainsword or Combat Blade in addition to his Boltgun and Bolt pistol. Since having melee weapons like this gives them a clear advantage over tactical marines, I decided that Grey Hunters can all take a Chainsword or Combat Blade for the additional cost of one point, this way you can choose to take it or not. 

Since Grey Hunters don’t carry Heavy Weapons I chose to add the option to take a single Long Fang for that duty. I also limited the Grey Hunters to a single special weapon to off set this; even Heretic Astartes cannot take two special weapons they are limited to one plus a heavy weapon.

Feel free to share your thoughts and comment below. 

Praise the Allfather and pass the ammunition, until next time,

Big Jim

Special Operations Killzone Codex Operatives incoming!

Hey guys I am happy to announce that by late March Spec Ops Killzone will be fully updated to 6th ed. The Codex Operatives has been woefully out of date, but fear not I have two very good friends that will be sitting down with me to make sure that this update happens so going forward updates won't be such a daunting task!

Until next time, keep your powder dry and lead flying!

New Years Soul Reapers codex update

Happy New Year people!

With a new year we need an updated new version of the Soul Reapers Codex. There are lots of subtle changes.

The biggest change is the removal of the Cohort Tactics from the individual Characters and made a coherent centralized listing for them. This is in a similar style to what was done in the 6^th ed Codex Space Marines.

I have removed the cultists from the book replacing them with Heretic squads that may be lead by a Soul Reapers Aspiring Champion.

There are some new upgrade options for some squads like Teleport homers and Chain Axes. These are fluffy for the Soul Reapers and quite frankly Chaos Marines in general.

Download your copy here:

Soul Reapers Codex 2014 V1

Until next time, keep your powder dry and lead flying!

Soul Reapers and the New Chaos Marine Codex part 2

So here is part 2 of my series about the interaction of the new Chaos codex and the Soul Reapers. I have dropped all the the Soul Reapers entries for the Basic Chaos marine entries to slim out the codex back to a mini-dex. I am still debating dropping the Reaver squads and allowing the Reapers to take Khorne Berzerkers to represent these maniacs. 

I will not be dropping the Dreadnought entry however; I will not call my Dread a Hellbrute ever, but I will adopt the new crazed rules, which are  a total step up from every version so far. 

So lets look at some of the changes I am making the Soul Reapers special rules, additional icons and their psychic discipline. All of these changes are in the early stages and have only seen the tabletop 3 times so far.

Fear is for the Weak: The Soul Reapers have been in the service of Chaos for ten millennia and are driven by the knowledge that the Dark Gods watch over them.

Soul Reapers are subject to the Stubborn USR found on page 76 of the MRB. Additionally they always use their unmodified leadership even when they attempt to regroup if the squad has been reduced less than half strength through casualties.

Any squad in a Soul Reapers army may purchase Fear is for the Weak for one point per model; Independent Characters can take it for 5 points.

Icon of Perpetual War for 10 points: The Soul Reapers bear this icon have been slaughtering their enemies with ease and brutal precision for millennia.

A unit that bears this Icon gains the Crusader USR.

Note: All units in a Soul Reapers army that can take icons in the Codex Chaos Space Marines may choose to take the Icon of Perpetual War for the points listed above.

Soul Reapers Psychic Discipline

Primaris Power

Imbuement of Chaos: Any friendly squad that is affected is imbued with the raw power of the Warp; this allows them to easily shred the toughest armor as if it were paper.

This power is a Blessing.

Pick any friendly unit within 12 inches including the caster himself; all affected models gain the Rending USR on all close combat attacks until the casting players next turn.

Warp Charge 1

1-2: Chains of Torment: The Apostle creates small warp rifts under his foes, launching ethereal chains that rend flesh to the bone in an attempt to drag the targets into the warp.

The Chains of torment is a Witchfire power with the following profile.

Range	Strength	AP	Type
12	5	-	Blast, Strikedown, Blind

Warp Charge 1

3-4: Warp Lightning: The Apostle shoots powerful bolts of lightning from his fingertips, arcing into the enemy leaving a wake of incinerated bodies.

Warp Lightning is a Witchfire power  with the following profile.

Range	Strength	AP	Type
36	8	4	Assault D3+1

Warp Lightning will ‘Arc’ into the nearest enemy unit within 6 inches; this will only happen if all the hits scored against the target unit cause wounds (before any saves are rolled); if the target is a vehicle all the hits must either glance or penetrate to ‘Arc’.

Warp Charge 2

5-6: Daemonic Terror: The sorcerer sends unhinging visions of the warp into his foes mind that debilitate them in combat.

Daemonic Terror is a Malediction power with a range of 24 inches.

The target unit loses D3 from its leadership value, it may not conduct Overwatch fire and all of its close combat attacks become unwieldy until the Sorcerers next turn.

Warp Charge 1

Soul Reapers and the New Chaos Marine Codex part 1

I like everyone else have been waiting for the release of the new codex Chaos Space Marines for the last few months, I had really high hopes. Unlike your average chaos marine player on the planet I as y’all know, took matters into my own hands and created codex Soul Reapers to fix the problems I had with the last codex.

My hopes for the new codex were of the thought I could drop almost everything in my Soul Reapers codex and make it basically a character and a couple of special units for the Soul Reapers supplemental mini-dex.

Most of these hopes were dependent on what they did with the non-cult units in the codex and from early rumors I was really excited and thought that they finally realized that the basic Chaos Marine was over-priced compared to every other marine unit in 40k.

Well the codex is out and it seems it is business as usual at GW; the basic chaos marine is going to remain a poor cousin to every other marine in 40k. Now I am not saying that the Chaos Space Marine codex is bad, because it is full of options and that is a great thing.

On the other hand I really believe that having a large amount of options is not going to save you if you do not focus on cult troops or buying an expensive icon for Fearless that can be sniped. Without Fearless troops I honestly believe that you are going to struggle uphill in the late game.

Some of this is caused by the extremely background driven Champion of Chaos rule, but this is a case where background hurts the army in game. It also sets the sun on the Power Fist Champion, cause in a challenge you want to strike at initiative if you only have one wound.

Phil did get it right with the lowered cost on Raptors and Bikes, which is a real gem that finally makes Chaos fast attack choices worthwhile. I think we will see Bikes a bit more than Raptors because they are the clear winner choice in the codex in the points reduction department.

So with all that said I have decided to go with the minimalist approach for the Soul Reapers anyway. I will however allow any units to purchase the old Fear is for the Weak rule from the older versions of the Soul Reapers project.

Next time I will look at what will be remaining in the mini-dex, the additions to the Armory and revamped psychic powers.

Killzone new rule ideas

Here are a few rules that we have been testing, but have not added to the update yet. They may or may not make it in. I figured I would give you a glimpse at what we are cooking up behind the scenes. 

Auto-fire: Any time a stationary model with a heavy weapon that has 3 or more shots fires, the shooting player may choose to initiate an Auto-fire attack; the player lays down a 3 x 5 inch Auto-fire template down with the long edge facing the shooting model. All models under the template generate one extra to hit dice in addition to the weapons usual rate of fire. These shooting attacks are all made at -1 BS. Wounds are allocated one at a time starting with the closest model, you may not place a second hit on any model until every model under the template has been allocated a hit.

Strength in Numbers: If you out number your opponent in the assault phase your models gain +1 to hit with all close combat attacks. However if you lose combat while outnumbering your opponent you have -1 to your leadership test.

Chain Blades: 2 points

Any model armed with a close combat weapon may upgrade it to a Chain Blade. These are vicious flesh rending, armor shredding weapons. Chain Blades are AP 4. (You may not upgrade combat accessories to Chain Blades)

Changes to 6th ed Killzone

I have been asked a few times since last night to list the major changes in the 6th ed update. To be totally honest there are no major changes, mostly minor tweaks.

Killzone Overwatch became Opportunity Fire

Grenades are thrown following the rules from the 6th ed MRB.

Assault distance is 4inches plus a D6, this was done to make sure that models with the new versions of fleet and equipped with Jump packs function properly.

I upped the limit of Jump Infantry and Bikes/Cav from 2 to 3 models in a standard list.

Some of the Killzone Wargear got tweaks as well; they are the Auspex, Medi-pack, Suspensors, Targeters and Thermal Imaging.

In missions with Reserves deployment 3 models may deploy via Deepstrike.

That is about the extent of the changes, although there has been some rewording of some rules/wargear for clarity. 

I am working on a team leader traits chart that I will hopefully be incorporating into the official update.

6th Ed Killzone Beta Released

It's final here, the S.O. Killzone 6th edition beta is available for download! This is not the finished update, it has no pics and most of the flavor text has not be added in; this is to get you guys back on the table. Let me know of any hiccups you find during play.



I have also uploaded the printer friendly versions of the Mission and Fate cards. You can print them out and paste them to regular playing cards.

Killzone 6th edition Download

Mission and Fate Cards Download

S.O. Killzone 6th ed update info

I appologize for the silence about the 6th ed update, I have been busy with commissions, dealing with tendonitis and learning the proper way to play 6th.

I have been asked many times in the past week about the release date for the update and to be honest I don't have a date set in stone. The plan is by mid to late September, cause I'd like to make it a solid update. I still need to format the changes and re-write some of the rules to fit with 6th.

The initial release will probably be very basic as I need to shoot a bunch of photos for the new book and my time is extremely limited right now.

If anyone is good with photoshop and wants to lend a hand with some of the pics would be welcomed. If you are interested in helping out with that just shoot me an email. Credit will be given as always.

Cheers,
Jim

Killzone and the Future

First off I would like to thank everyone that has been involved in S.O. Killzone and supported the game from the get go. I also want to say a heartfelt fond farewell to Brian and good luck in all of your future game design endeavors. I appreciate the help you gave and all the work you have done for S.O. Killzone more than words can convey.

I hate for it to end but end it has.

 S.O. Killzone will go on as S.O. Killzone: Events once its 6th edition update is done and dusted. After that is completed I will finally be able to focus on the more narrative version that I had planned to do from the very beginning of this long two year road. 

This will be Killzone: Evolution,  the next logical step in skirmish gaming for the Warhammer 40k universe.

Where Special Operations Killzone bent over backward to allow existing 40k players an easy transition into skirmish gaming; Killzone Evolution might have a bit of a learning curve for many of those same gamers.

Like its predecessor it will still draw most of its rules from 40k, but unlike its predecessor it will change the way the game turn works. 

Killzone Evolution will use an action based alternation activation turn sequence. Each model will have a set number of actions that they can perform when “activated.” More to come on this in a future post.

Then finally we will have Killzone: Forlorn Hope that will pit players verses hoards of aliens or zombies. This will be a supplement that works for both the Events and Evolution systems.

So as one chapter ends a brand new one begins for Killzone.

Cheers,
Jim

Narrative Gaming special events cards development

Hey guys,
It's high time for some new rules design here on the blog, it's been far too long. I was wondering if anyone would like to help me come up with 3 decks of cards aimed for use in narrative events.

I'll need decks for:

Secret missions
Fate (advantage and disadvantage)
Stratagems

The cards work Brilliantly in Special Operations Killzone and have decided it would be a great asset for those running narrative gaming events since they seem be gaining in popularity. So I say strike while the iron is hot!

Any takers?

Rules from the Man-cave: Big Game 40K

Been a while since I shared some of the wackiness that we do here in the GiF Man-cave. I thought I’d share this with you guys.

The guys in my group love to play outrageously large games of 40k with points values reaching Apocalypse stature, but we still want to feel and flavor of 40k. We have played plenty of D-Weapon Titan madness, which is fun for the occasional slugfest, but not really what we are looking for in most games.

We like to still have the infantry be important, while at the same time adding the koolness of limited Super Heavies. So we came up with a series of house rules to cover our big game outings.

Rule 1: All armies must contain at least 3 troop choices (preferably full strength) and include a further 3 non-vehicle units from any force org selection of their chosen Codex. For every full 1000 points over 3000 they must choose an additional non-vehicle unit.

Rule 2: All armies must have an HQ selection as their “Battle Group Leader.” These HQ units gain D3 +1 fate points. The fate points are used to keep the BGL on the tabletop as long as possible, they may be used anytime that the BGL is killed. Roll a D6, on the score of a 4+ fate has intervened and the BGL remains on the table with 1 wound left.

Rule 3: All non- super heavy vehicles may move up to 6 inches and fire all their weapons; if they move over 6 they may fire one. Fast vehicles may move up to 12 inches and fire all their weapons; if they move over 12 they may fire one. If using the Spearhead supplement rules any vehicle may shoot at two targets if part of a SH formation.

Rule 4: Each Team may have one Destroyer weapon for every 2500 points in their force.

Rule 5: Each Team may have 4 structure points for every 2000 points in their force.

Rule 6: Everything can score an objective in big games, with the exception of empty transport vehicles. Super Heavies count as one scoring unit per structure point. So a Baneblade with 2 structure points, counts as 2 scoring units. To claim an objective you must have more scoring units on it than your opponent has.

Keeping the fun of 40k alive in the Man-cave

Fritz from Fritz 40k posted on his blog the other day opining about the fun of the good old days during the early editions of 40k.

I agree the good old days seemed focused on fun and it was fun to play 40k back then. With that said I would say that the game can be just as fun today as it was in the past.

It is all in what you and you opponents expect from the game when you go to the table. I have surrounded myself with gamers who are into 40k for the background of the universe. This has a tendency to create a really fun atmosphere to game in. While everyone likes to win their battles none of of are focused on winning we tend to focus on creating great stories on the tabletop.

We also have a tendency to change up the game with simple house rules or guidelines to help the cinematic events in game.

The first thing we do is run lots of ongoing campaigns. This has a tendency to create cool story lines for our games. We also smack talk before our sessions telling the tales of our latest victories from out previous games.

We also tend to run about half our games as Attacker/Defender scenarios. With the Attacker gaining a 25% points advantage. The Defenders gain their own advantages depending on the scenario being played.

Second we have thrown out the Force Org for army building. The only requirements we have are 1 HQ and two Troops. You may spend up to a quarter of your points on HQ's and freely fill out the rest of your points with Elite, Troops, Fast Attack and Heavy Support choices.

This leads to really dynamic armies, which in itself is awesome, making the cinematic of the game even more epic.

Thirdly all games use objectives as a victory condition, plus each side gets a secondary objective based on Kill Points to break ties. These secondary objectives are the ones I listed in this post.

The bottom line is that 40k is as fun and/or competitive as you and your opponents make it. So free your mind and the rest will follow!

Rules from the Man-cave: Proper Wolf Priests

One of my biggest gripes about the Codex Space Wolves is the Wolf Priest entry. They have lost the Apothecary wargear and abilities. This peeves me to no end.

After all Wolf Priests take the roles of the Chaplain and Apothecary within the Space Wolf chapter, being responsible for both the spiritual and physical well-being of their fellow Wolves.

So here in the Man-cave, my depraved mind has come up with the following addition to the Wolf Priest entry.

Wolf Priest 125 points

Same stats and options as the Space Wolf codex with the addition of a Narthecium to his standard Wargear.

The Narthecium allows the Wolf priest and any model in any squad that he has joint to benefit from the Feel No Pain USR from the main 40k rules book.

Notes: to figure the cost of the Narthecium I examined the Codex Space Marine Command Squad entry. It was determined that the Narthecium cost 15 points, but I was placing it on an Independent Character so I bumped the cost up by 10 points.

It was a fairly easy fix to what I saw as a glaring problem in the Codex.

Soul Reapers Fandex Design notes part 1

I figure since I just posted the final playtest PDF I should give a little insight into the ideas behind the choices I made along the way.

This project was entered from a how to make Chaos Marines feel unique from a background perspective; while keeping them realistically playable on the tabletop.

I am not a fan of the Cult troops are the only way to make a viable army aspect of the current Chaos Space Marine Codex. In fact it bores me to tears.

With every new Marine codex that is released the Chaos Marine codex feels more and more out of date. From the current design standpoint the units are overpriced and stagnant. The worst hit units in the codex are the non-Cult ones.

This was always meant to be a supplement to the C:CSM, but it has gone from a simple mini-dex just used to enhance and supplement a few things in the Codex Chaos Marines; it is now a complex full blown fandex drawing very little from the Codex Chaos Marines. It will always have to draw some things from the C:CSM as I do not want GW IP violations to kill the project.

Through the project I have rewritten all of the non-Cult squad entries, in an attempt to:

A) Bring them more inline with the 5th ed design style

B) Create unique units befitting their status as veterans of thousands of years of endless conflict.

I fully understand that most of the community will not agree with some or all of the choices I have made, and I am fine with that. After all I don’t see the need to have a hard core tournament scene for playing with toy soldiers, since I play for recreation, and I am sure the competitive crowd don’t mind that I don’t care for tourneys. To each his own I say.

The first change I would like to look at is the Fear is for the Weak special rule for the Soul Reapers.

I knew that the basic Chaos marine types needed a special rule to really have value at their points costs. The last thing I wanted to do was falling into the oft touted give 'em Fearless you hear all over the interwebz. I have said it before and I will say it again, I am not a huge fan of fearless. Funny thing is as much as I tried to avoid it, I kinda ended up creating a poor version of it with out the perks, then in the end abandoned it completely.

This is the 4th and final version of the rule; it has been shoved through the meat grinder during playtesting. The initial version was really close the SM ATSKNF, but I quickly got outta that trap. The second version oddly enough is essentially the same as the final version, but it was removed at the time because I was still using the icon of Chaos Glory out of the C:CSM, and re-rolls on Stubborn is just overpowered.

Then I came up with the complicated version which was a slight combination of Fearless and Stubborn. This version of Fear is for the Weak lasted for 9 months, but was extremely brutal on the army due to the no retreat wounds. It also failed once I replaced the Icon of Chaos Glory. So not only were the Reapers taking extra wounds they were routing on top of it.

So after a lot of thought I brought back the Stubborn version of the rule and it has been smooth sailing ever since. I also kept the ability to always be able to regroup right down to the last Marine, since a single Marine is a viable threat from a background perspective.

Next time I will go into some of the unit changes that I made and explain some of why I did what I did.

Upward and onward.
Jim

Warp Wraith: final Soul Reapers unit entry

This is a tank that the Soul Reapers used in my gaming groups Sarmation Sector campaign a few years back. I've been corresponding with my buddy Sean who has been recovering from a close call with an RPG in Afghanistan; he suggested to add this into the min-dex as it was a fun option during the campaign.

The Warp Wraith tank is built on the refitted chassis of the seventeenths old Whirlwinds. While they are still viable saturation weapons their actual use is to create confusion and panic in the ranks of the enemy.

The Warheads contain a powerful Hallucinogen that causes the most horrific visions imaginable; pulled straight from the nightmares of its target.

Warp Wraith 105 Points

BS-4 FA-11 SA-11 RA-10

Unit Composition:
• 1 Warp Wraith

Unit Type:
• Vehicle (Tank)

Wargear:
• Wraith Launchers
• Smoke launchers
• Searchlight
Options
• May take any of the following:
• Dozer blade…………………….5pts
• Extra armor…………………15pts
• Daemonic possession…..…20pts
• Dirge caster……………….……5pts

• May take one of the following:
• Pintle heavy bolter……...........10pts
• Pintle twin linked bolter………..5pts

Wraith Launcher: The dual mounted Launchers mounted on the Warp Wraith fire a fusillade of explosive cluster missiles that contain toxins that will drive their targets temporarily insane with fear.

Range: 12-48 Strength: 5 AP: 5 Type: Barrage 4, Small Blast, No Pinning, Ignores cover, Hallucinogen

Due to the latent effects if the Hallucinogens any unit hit by the Wraith Launchers will become subject to the night fighting rules on its next turn, so will only be able to spot and fire at targets 2D6x3 inches away. In addition they must pass a leadership test at -2 or roll on the following chart:

Wraith Launcher Hallucinogen Chart

1 Over There: the unit must immediately fall back.
2-3 Dazed and Confused: the unit may make no actions in their next turn.
4-5 It’s Inside of Me: D3 models must make armor saves or be removed as casualties.
6 Get ‘Em: the unit must shoot at the nearest friendly unit in their next shooting phase.

Editorial: 40k rewrite part I: what would you like to see

To celebrate my 300th post here on GiF, I thought I would tackle something controversial and unique.

Since I am constantly presenting my gaming out side the box rules I figured what better topic than addressing a complete rewrite of Warhammer 40k. This will be the first post in a series on what I would do to change the landscape of the game.

A really good friend of mine keeps telling me that he thinks "the future of 40k should be in the hands of the fans." I do think he is right in many ways.

Before anyone sweeps in and bashes me for the idea of questioning the designers who are paid to write the rules, let me just tell you to step off. Just because someone is paid to do something does not mean that they should or are any good at it.

I'll be the first to admit that I am an amateur games designer doing this stuff in my free time. I have become quite good at this sort of thing with more than 25 years of experience creating rules.

With all that out of the way.

What would you do if you were the lead designer on sixth edition 40k and were allowed a blank page to create the game system?

Would you keep the "I go, you go" game turn mechanics?

What changes would you make to the movement phase?

What changes would you make to the shooting phase?

What changes would you make to the Assault phase?

What changes would you make to Vehicles?

What changes would you make to the Missions?

What changes would you make to the points system? Would you bring back a quantifiable system for costing models and units; or would you keep the arbitrary this feels right system of the current codices?

I look forward to your thoughts on this topic.

Rules from the Man-cave: Rending Bolters

I have not done a Rules from the Man-cave post in a good while because I have been so busy with Killzone. I tried this gem of a rule out last night and it was great fun! First a little background into why I tried it.

Neil from the 11th Company podcast on one of the episodes had joked that Bolter Marines would be worth taking if their weapons were Rending.

This kinda made sense to me as according to fluff Bolters are firing mini missiles that explode upon impact/penetration. I know fluff and the actual game rarely survive contact, but in this case I say "why the heck not?"

We gave all Bolters, Bolt Pistols and Heavy Bolters Rending. We wanted to make sure this change was not overpowered or game breaking, so we decided to only allow the bolters to rend against non-vehicle soft targets.

My buddy Greg and I both fielded Marine armies, it was Imperial Fists verses Chaos Soul Reapers. We used these armies to see the maximum effect of the rending Bolters.

The game was glorious fun, with Marines hugging cover to avoid rending death. It added a new tactical element to the game, which in my opinion is a good thing! It also made combat squads very dangerous to utilize, as it did not take much to make them combat ineffective.

Over the course of six turns there were a combined total of 34 rending wounds from bolters. 20 of them were mine, it was glorious!

It really made standard marines shine more than usual, and made for a really dynamic marine on marine game!

You should definitely try it out if you get the opportunity.

Disclaimer: I don't usually post house rules that I have not extensively used/playtested, but these were so darned fun I wanted to share them now rather than later. This way I can make an update and give more thoughts after a few more games.

It had also been suggested that Eldar Shuriken weapons should probably have these special rending rules. I am not opposed to this, but it needs some table time.